


Black Cassette: Side A

by VentekIndustries



Series: Black Cassette [1]
Category: Night In The Woods (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Dreams and Nightmares, F/F, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Instability, Night Terrors, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Self-Medication, Therapy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-08
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-10-29 11:36:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10853181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VentekIndustries/pseuds/VentekIndustries
Summary: You put the black tape into an old player you'd borrowed from a friend. The labels were marked in a crude Sharpie scrawl: 'Side A' and 'Side B'. You hit play, and the cassette crackled into life...





	1. Prologue (Let Me Out)

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first foray in the wide world of writing fiction! I hope to get some constructive feedback on my freshman effort in writing inside established universes, and I definitely hope to improve as I write this!
> 
> I've planned this out, but I have no idea how long it'll really be, though likely not much more than a dozen chapters depending on how it all develops. Time will tell!

Mae’s house was gone.

It was a common theme in her recent dreams, a running joke in some kind of twisted way that she found darkly amusing. She’d wander, lost, nothing but the stifling heat of the sun on her back and the crooked telephone poles that jutted from the dry dirt to keep her company. The entirety of Possum Springs, wiped clean by the dying throes of an unknowing and uncaring demon that lurked below the cracked remnants of pavement and asphalt.

Mae turned, facing an unending horizon of grays and browns that mixed together in one muddied color that escaped description.

 _Terribly effin’ depressing was a good start_ , the lone cat thought. Sort of like every dream that she’d had in the past six months.

Something felt different tonight, for the first time since… god, when was the last time she’d had a dream that _didn’t_ turn in an existential nightmare? The exhausted young woman scanned the infinite stretch of dead fields, red irises squeezed between her eyelids as she squinted against the harsh sunlight.

Nothing, as usual. Stumps of mysteriously harvested trees, the dead and twisted shapes of those that were still clinging to some kind of half-life. Telephone poles repeating into the hazy fog, torn lines and strange angles preventing Mae from simply hopping up onto the cables, lest she risk a deadly fall.

 

_Could you even die in a dream if you knew it was a dream?_

 

It sounded stupid, like you were going to just pretend the whole thing was real if you got hit with a mental representation of a train, flattened by a runaway mental car, or broke your mental neck? This train of thought was pointless anyway, considering none of the dead plants was tall enough for her to leap up onto the corroded power cables.

Her tangential thoughts were interrupted, calling Mae back to her senses when her eyes noticed that there was something different, out there in the choking fog.

Some _one_.

Just beyond the range of clear sight a shadow stood on two spindly legs, and Mae swore for a moment that as she was watching, the action was returned in kind despite not being able to discern if the fog-shrouded figure even had eyes.

“Hey! You!” The dark-blue cat shouted at the obscured somebody, waving her hands up in the air with great vigor. It was the first time that there was something beyond the dead landscape that’d been her whole world, a sprig of life in her mental wasteland. “ **Hey!!!** ”

There was a sudden wavering, the shadow appearing to dissipate as though it were being blown away even though there was no change in the weather at all; the suffocating heat and still air clung to Mae's fur without a hiccup in its intensity or ability to make the young Borowski wish that sweating in your dreams was illegal.

Before the dread of losing hope could settle down in her head, in the span of a fraction of a second, that shadow was suddenly _there_. Right there, barely more than a foot from her face and unlike when it’d lingered at a distance, up close the thing looked very tangible and frighteningly incomprehensible.

What Mae had thought was haze and fog making the shadow’s appearance indescribable had instead become the terrifying understanding that the shadow was just as much a shadow when it was right in front of her. A black, roiling mass of something that was halfway between churned-up old oil and the thick, choking smog that she’d seen come from the trucks on the highway as they barreled down to unknown places. What made it most unnerving, however, was how it made Mae _feel_.

It’d been discomforting at a distance, which the feline had put down to being unable to tell if it was watching her, but with the span of a good two feet between her and the ever-melting figure, Mae felt her fur stand on end and her heart slam out a rapid beat. The oppressive heat was now a blazing inferno, forcing its way inside her through her nose and mouth even as she tried to breathe and found that no air was left to spare.

Pitch-black, nightmarish, the summation of unbridled emotions compressed into the form of a not-quite person. Mae’s chest felt like it was about to explode even as her panicked thoughts pieced together exactly _what_ this feeling was and why it was so _familiar_.

It was the same kind of crushing, teary-eyed fury that she’d felt that one night, so sure that her friends were going to die alongside her in the mines. When she’d beat Andy Cullen into a half-coma, the boy nothing more than cold, uncaring shapes that taunted her with the loss of the only things she had ever cared about.

Paralyzed by asphyxiation, Mae fell to her knees, shapes and colors and dust all around her as the anger suddenly gave way to pure fear, cold hands gripping at her wrists as she uselessly tried to pull and claw at the nonexistent hold that kept tightening around her neck.

 

_Could you even die in a dream if you knew it was a dream?_

 

The dark-blue cat collapsed back onto the dead, dusty dirt, her eyes wide and pupils shrunk to pinpricks that kept focus on that amorphous mass of impossibly dark black.

At first, she thought that maybe she’d just die and be done with it, but just when the darkness began to pull at the edges of her vision and her feverish brain stopped communicating with the rest of her body, the shape _moved_. It slowly shifted to her side, and for the first time Mae noticed that it had shoes; a pair of pitch-black boots, crusted with the dust of her mental landscape, carefully stepping over her twitching, splayed legs so that it now towered over her.

Even in her dying throes, Mae found herself amused at how infuriating it was to look at something with no eyes. How did you know where it was looking, if it even could see?

Interrupting the youngest Borowski's parting thoughts, the smoky, oily mass leaned in close, bending its obscured midsection so that its ‘head’ was now less than a couple of inches from Mae’s bulging eyes. As she began to fade, shapes peeling off from her fur and face while the young woman disintegrated, there was a new sound.

It was quiet at first, but right as her mental body painfully disassembled into dissonant shapes and her real one flew awake and screamed bloody murder, Mae could still hear the whispered words.

A whispered _promise_.

Even as she woke every person in the house, even as her parents burst into the attic room and quickly wrapped her up in warm, comforting hugs as she sobbed uncontrollably, the words remained stuck in her head as though a real, physical presence had been in her bedroom and whispered them into her ear with a bone-chilling drawl.

“I know your fears, Mae. I will make them _real_.”


	2. Track 1 (Down the Road)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You realize that this story might take some time. Whoever this "Mae" is, she has some real problems.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first of many tracks goes up! Not all of them will be this short, I promise!

“So, Ms. Borowski. Tell me why you think you’re here today.”

A quiet chime came from the cat clock mounted on the wall of the therapist’s office, each little tick and tock marked by the swinging eyes. Left, right, left, right; a hypnotizing rhythm that the young cat on the long couch found herself falling into. The repetition helped ease her tension a little, but knowing that the grizzled old crocodile sitting in the overstuffed chair nearby was keeping an eye on her made sure that Mae remained grounded partially in reality.

Her parents had insisted that she go out of town to see someone. Doctor Hank, for as kind and mindful as he was, certainly had no qualification to be seeing her for something a licensed therapist was far more prepared and educated for. Her mom had said as much during that conversation about college and why Mae had come home so suddenly, something that brought the tickle of a smile to her face. Her dad had also been understanding, if not a little left behind; he, too, was kind and loving as ever, and he acted as a solid anchor to her own unsteady feelings and her mom’s (over)emotional investment.

Yet he talk of how her mind twisted the world to her eyes and the emotions that consumed everything else wasn’t something Stan had been able to truly digest. He was used to solid facts and hard work, tangible and almost-tangible things. Mae loved her dad with her whole being, but she hadn’t expected him to understand the very much un-tangible experiences she’d been through. After all, even she barely knew how she felt some of the time. Most of the time.

…

Okay, all of the time.

 

“Ms. Borowski?”

Mae snapped back to attention, the old gator’s knowing gaze behind his thick spectacles immediately catching her attention.

Doctor… dang. She knew this. C’mon Borowski, don’t forget his name on the first meeting… he was Doctor… Daley! That was his name! The guy with the fancy-pants degree, as she’d remarked to her mom on the drive out of Possum Springs. The same fancy degree that hung on the wall behind the doctor, like a deer head or a beloved family photo.

Briefly, the cat wondered if her new therapist had a family, and she let the amusing idea of tiny, thick-spectacled alligator kids running around and all over the dignified doctor pass through her brain-space unhindered.

“I, um. I’m here because… I’m crazy?” The young woman finally responded, her paws clasped atop her chest, restlessly fiddling and plucking at her favorite burnt-orange shirt, the big ' **Ø** ' faded but still visible.

“And because I… hurt people? Not physically, um, anymore, just emotionally. Also now I’m having these really intense nightmares? So now I’m here.”

The therapist hummed quietly, writing something down on the pad in his hand. Mae wondered if he was really writing, or just doodling. She knew that if it was her, she’d be guilty beyond reproach. Her journal was living proof of that.

More scratching, more writing, until the elderly gator finally looked up from his notes, tucking them into the gap between the seat cushion and arm. Mae noticed that the upholstery was well-worn in that particular spot. She guessed it was a habit for the man to store the pad there when he wasn’t drawing or whatever it was he _actually_ did.

“Yes, I’ve looked at the file that I requested from Phineas’ office,” The bespectacled man looked over at his patient, a soft expression on his face. “I have to say, you have fared far better than I would’ve assumed, given that he only assigned you a journal and failed to address your deeper psychological issues.”

 

“Oh. Um, yeah. Sure I guess?” Mae fumbled for words. “ Uh, honestly, Doctor Hank is a good _doctor_ and junk. Just not a good therapist.”

He nodded. “Yes, I am well aware of Phineas’ slight shortcomings. I’ve had the opportunity to work with his office before, back when I was a per-diem therapist for one of the old shuttered mining companies. He can patch a mean wound, but his therapeutic credentials may be _slightly_ over-exaggerated.”

The therapist gave Mae a short smile, shaking his head. “How that man isn’t out of business I will never know. That’s beside the point, though. Let’s get back to you.”

“Now, I wouldn’t call you ‘crazy’, Ms. Borowski. That sort of term is used by people who don’t care to understand that all of us function differently, and this line of thinking applies to your mental being as well. While I’m sure we’ll make great progress as we continue these sessions, it all starts with believing that you can recover and begin to function again with minimal disruption from your issues. In that regard, I would like to ask something first.”

Settling back in his seat, Max’s face shifted, the new expression a little more expectant. “Do you have your journal with you?”

“Yeah, uh, hold on.” Quickly sitting upright and swinging her legs over the side of the couch, Mae produced her worn journal from the small bag she’d brought along to the session, offering it to the older man. The doctor gently took it from her.

“Do you mind if I look inside? I won’t talk about your writing if you don’t wish to. Just want to get to know you and your thoughts a tad better. I’m behind on getting to know you, after all, and it’d help if I could pick your brain a little, so to speak. By the way, do you mind if I just call you Mae from now on? I know it’s less formal than most other doctors would address you, but I feel that it makes our time together a little less ‘clinical’ and a little more ‘comfort’. What d’you say?”

The offer was tempting, and honestly, she was up for anything that’d make the anxiety sitting on her chest lighten up a bit. “Yeah, that’s cool. Can I say your normal name too, or do I have to be all proper?”

Her therapist shook his head. “No, it’s fine if you want to relax the rules with me. My name is Maxwell, but you can just call me Max if you’d like.” He leaned forward, hand outstretched, and Mae took it and gave a firm shake.

Returning to his seat and settling in, he waved Mae’s journal lightly, focused on her. “Do you mind if I look?”

Mae was slightly taken aback. “Why’re you asking me? You’re the doctor— uh, therapist. Max.” She gave a shrug. “I didn’t think you needed permission to look at a crazy person’s stuff. Max.”

Doctor Daley gave an obliviously soft smile, the wrinkles at the edges of his mouth telling the apprehensive young lady that he wasn’t trying to calm her with false platitudes. Mae felt, despite her own lack of apparently emotional stability, that she was in-tune with the vibes that other people put out. Like some kind of radar or cool science device that told you how people felt, only wrapped up in a package that sometimes didn’t cooperate and occasionally flat out refused to work. Or burst into flames.

 

Or caused something _else_ to catch fire.

 

“Technically, yes. I could look at it without your permission. In my experience, however, I find that respecting personal boundaries helps immensely. Plus, looking through your things with you right there and not asking seems awful rude.” The journal remained in the doctor’s hands, firmly shut. He also had shrugged off Mae’s repetition of his name, not paying much mind to it. “So, may I?”

Truthfully, no. It _wasn’t_ alright.

Mae tried to think about how her sketches would look to someone from the outside, a heavy weight settling on her chest at the idea of anyone prying into her thoughts, even if they were in crappy drawn form. Everything that’d happened that one week; that night in the mines, shapes and friends, chasing ghosts that weren’t really ghosts but were still very much ghost-like. Finding out the truth about Casey, about the town’s slow yet inevitable descent into dust. Learning of the old god that lived miles below the surface of her home. Why she’d been hearing and dreaming so vividly about the end of everything.

 

Mae kept her gaze fixed on the journal, taking a deep breath and letting it out, slow and unsteady.

Feeling the unease wash over her, the dark-blue cat forced herself to push through the discomfort and plunge headfirst into the unknown, as always.

 

“Sure. Go ahead.”


	3. Track 2 (The Kids Aren't Alright)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seems like everyone is not having a great time. Idly, a threat is considered in the back of someone's head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Track two up! I know these are all pretty snippet-like, but it's mostly just to fill the timeline in post-game and set up some things. I imagine that in this case, Mae took Bea's route. Doesn't mean that Gregg and Angus get off that easily, though...

As great as it was to be free to run around, talk to her friends, and generally resume her mantle as the most restless resident in Possum Springs, Mae had to come to grips with being an ‘adult’, as some would (hesitantly) call her.

No longer enrolled in college and sorely in need of money to help pay for her treatments (her mom had insisted _no_ ; Mae had insisted _yes_ ), the slightly less carefree Borowski suddenly found herself face-to-face with the most difficult and dangerous foe of all: _responsibility_.

Not that she was some kind of terrible, horrendous mess who ditched her friends and family or went back on her word. Nah, she just tended to be a little…

 

“Unreliable.”

 

Mae stood there blatantly looking attacked and disappointed, starkly contrasting her wardrobe for the day: it was the best semi-formal outfit she owned. Which was to say, a dark-grey blazer over the only dress in her closet, a deep maroon ensemble complete with skirt that she’d paired with black flats. It felt distinctly uncomfortable not having a pair of pants on, and she took a moment to mourn her decision not to wear something else to go job hunting.

“What?! C’mon Beabea!” The dark-blue cat raised her arms in a gesture of exasperation.

The gator behind the counter was having none of it, crossing her arms and letting out a stream of smoke from her nostrils which Mae took as an opportunity to try and talk her way into a job at the Ol’ Pickaxe.

“You know I’m doing better! I'm seeing a therapist now! I haven’t even seen a shape since… well, look, _past_ Mae was dumb and did dumb crap, but _I’m_ not whatever word you just used!”

“Unreliable?”

“Yeah! I just forget stuff sometimes. But only the not-important stuff! People forget more valuable things all the time!” The dark-blue cat would normally have hopped up onto the counter, but both her focus on not being disrespectful and also not showing off her skivvies kept her flats firmly planted on the floor. She instead chose to scoot up alongside where Bea stood on the other side of the wooden tabletop. “C’moooooooooooooooooo _oooooooooooooooooo_ —“

“Look, Mae,” Bea interrupted, pinching the bridge of her nose as another cloud of smoke puffed from her nostrils, the cigarette in her mouth getting just a little shorter afterwards. “I know you mean well and your heart’s in the right place. And I _am_ proud in a roundabout way that you're getting some real, non-Hank help for your mental illnesses. If I were able to hire you, I would. Well, _hesitantly_ , but the fact is—”

“What? Why can’t you hire me? I helped you fix Mrs. Miranda’s boiler that one time! We even got lemonade out of it!”

“Mae, the Pickaxe is on the verge of closing down. I just can’t afford to hire someone else on right now.”

All of the wind had gone right out of Mae’s sails, and then tipped the boat over as a final departing gesture. The cat just stared at Bea, her gaze riveted to the exhausted-looking gator. The Pickaxe? As in, _the_ Pickaxe? Not being… open? Bea actually _worried_? The idea was like trying to think of the sky as lime-green, the moon being made of whipped cream, or Gregg skipping a chance to scarf down upper-scale-rated pizza. It simply didn’t compute.

* * *

 

“I’ve been cutting down hours for the crew, ordering only the essentials, even trying to cut back on driving around but… there just aren’t enough people looking for repairs. It’s the start of the summer months, and it should be our busiest season. I’ve had probably a third of the usual business from this time last year, Mae. I know numbers aren’t your strong suit, but if you looked at them even you could see they don’t add up.” Each word from Bea’s mouth seemed to weigh down on her shoulders, her arm and elbow pressed hard against the wooden counter as she relied on it to keep herself upright.

The way Bea had spit out how bad things were had made it far too real very quickly, and she regretted her choice of words. Especially since Mae was just staring at her like she’d been witness to a murder or some kind of messed-up party trick. Bea wished that she’d chosen to gradually let Mae down, spin some tale about less work without letting slip the heavy reality of her situation. The regret didn’t make it any less the truth, though, as the work _had_ dried up noticeably and there weren’t enough sales to keep her head above water for much longer. Her dad disappearing that one night, coming home to an empty apartment; it’d taken its toll, quietly, silently. Though the Pickaxe had finally fallen under her total oversight and the gator-shaped albatross around her neck had lightened, Beatrice couldn’t shake the idea that it’d come with a terrible price that’d only just now begun to reveal itself.

“I… thought things were okay,” Mae shakily interjected, drawing her friend from her thoughts. “Yesterday you said things were a just little tight. Last week you even let me help you out with some odd jobs and stuff. I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t.” The gator gave a dejected sigh. “It’s called ‘economics’, and its coming home to roost and crap all over me and the shop.” She tapped out the dying embers from her cigarette stub into the always-present ashtray, mashing the butt into the dish amongst the dozen other used smokes.

Mae was quiet for about three seconds (a new record! Bea thought) before pressing the question. “…what about your dad? He’s not gonna be happy about it. I mean, he hasn’t been here for a while, and he’s a real jerk, but…”

Bea didn’t even bother to correct her friend. She’d purposefully neglected to tell her, Gregg, or Angus about that night. Coming back to a vacant apartment, coming to terms with what her dad’s vanishing act meant. The first night she’d thought maybe he’d passed out at Miller’s again. it wouldn’t have been the first time, as on the rare occasion he managed to haul himself off the couch it was the only other place he went aside from lip-service stops at the Pickaxe. But then another night had come and gone, and he wasn’t home. Nor the night after that.

 

It’d taken her a week to realize that maybe, just _maybe_ , when she’d killed Possum Springs, it’d taken her dad as early collateral.

 

“…no. No. He won’t. But he’ll have to deal with it. _I’ll_ have to deal with it.” Slowly hauling herself upright, the lone Santello gazed aimlessly down the aisle in front of her, wondering how much longer she could carry on like things weren’t falling apart under her fingertips. Reflexively, she reached under the countertop for her box of nicotine-infused respite sticks.

“So, yeah. Sorry, Maeday.”

She watched as Mae tried to struggle through the truth she’d dumped on her friend. The rejection had likely been bad enough, especially since Gregg wasn’t at the Snack Falcon to go and sulk with. With the addition of the (accidentally) harsh truth about the business, Bea knew that she’d just thrown the icing on the shitty, generic cake.

“Th— It’s okay. Not hiring me, I mean. Not the Pickaxe being all, uh, not great money-wise. That’s pretty bad.”

“Yup.”

“I mean, it’s no picnic or whatever, but you’ll pull through, right?”

“Probably.”

 

“And your dad isn’t gonna be mad at you, _right_?”

 

 _Please stop_ , Bea thought, closing her eyes and pretending that she was anywhere but in the dingy store she’d been running for the last two years,slowly being slipped into an early grave by lack of sleep and money.

“N— not likely.”

“So…”

 _Don’t ask The Question_ , the gator silently begged, pleading against her own better judgement that when she opened her eyes, she’d be anywhere but behind the counter.

“If the Pickaxe does go under, _just saying_ , don’t get mad! If it _does_ close up…”

_Anything else. Tell me your dad got a new job. Gregg’s coming back to visit. Lori wants you to star as a movie corpse._

_Please_.

 

“…what’s gonna happen to you? And your dad, is he gonna be alright?”

 

Bea felt like her head was going to split apart, rending open in a shower of gore that Lori would appreciate. It was a hundred knives, pushing into her soft grey matter all at once.

Her troubled expression didn’t go unnoticed.

“Bea?"

 

_Breathe. You need to keep going, you can do this. You’ve done it for two years, scraped and saved, kept this junk heap afloat through sheer will._

 

“Are you feeling okay?”

 

_Breathe. Mae’s still here. You can’t be like this. You shouldn’t. She’s got enough to deal with. It’s your own stupid problem._

 

“…uh, Bea? Beatrice? I’m— this is getting really— are you, um, okay…?” The cat nervously eyed the shaking Bea, also glancing back at the door in case someone walked in.

 

 _Stop it. Who said you could cry? What’s_ _wrong_ _with you?_

 

“B— Beabea?”

 

Nothing could have stopped it, the perfect shitstorm that’d been years in the making. The metaphorical snowball had built up its momentum; her mother, her dad, her dreams of college, the shop. Now it was a raging avalanche that bore down on her with no escape in sight.

 

 

So, she cried.

 

 

It hurt, the end of everything she’d known.

 

Mae didn’t understand what was happening, but held on to her friend until the racking sobs gave way to manageable crying, and then petered out into a quiet despondency.

* * *

 

The phone rang a few times before the soft click heralded a familiar voice. "Borowski residence, how can I help ya?"

 

Mae felt glad that it'd been her dad to pick up the phone.

"H-hey dad. How's things?"

"Oh hey, kitten. Just putting my feet up, getting ready to make the groove in the couch a little deeper. Where are you calling from? Everything okay?"

The distraught young woman glanced back at where Bea still sat crumpled up on an overstuffed chair, exactly as she'd left her unresponsive friend. After Bea'd broken down into tears and then fallen quiet, it'd been up to Mae to help her into the back of the Pickaxe and close the store. It'd been a rushed deal, and she was sure that if Beatrice was in better spirits that she'd get an earful for doing such a lousy job.

She wished that she could trade her mental-Bea's rant for the real thing.

"Uh. Well, not... exactly. Is mom home?"

On the other end of the line, she could hear her dad scoot around the kitchen a little before replying. "Mmmm, nope. Seems like she's still up at the church helping out the pastor, or at least that's the last I heard. Why?"

In the chair, Bea had curled up to make herself smaller, still quiet, eyes closed and the occasional sniffle leaking out.

 

"It's... hard to explain. Can you pick me up from the Pickaxe?"

"Sure, gotta throw my shoes on first. You're not hurt, are you? Is Bea there? I'm sure she could drive you."

 

"No dad. I don't think she can."


	4. Interlude 1 (For the Record)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last track cuts out, the new one opening with silence. Then, a voice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the gap between updates! I actually had this already written up, but finals time is near and it's handing me a heavy dose of exhaustion on a platter of bullshit. Anyway, let's get a little meta! At least until I can do up the next track.

Hey! You!

Yeah, you! Listening in on me. Mystery person.

How’s it going? Pretty alright, I hope. You mystery, you.

 

Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks? For, uh, bothering to put this old-ass thing into an equally old-ass tape player.

I don’t know if you’re listening to this ten days or ten years from now. Still, I mean. Good for you, bothering to play this thing.

 

Man, this is dumb.

 

What? No, I’m not— I _know_ I’m supposed to! I’m doing it right _now_!

Ugh. That was Beatrice. She’s— well, it’s complicated. Sorta. I mean, not really? To me, anyway.

 

I’m getting ahead of myself. Don’t wanna ruin the mystery of this crappy cassette for you.

I wanted to record this for, like, posterity. A monument to the wonderful world of me.

It’s what Bea said I should do. Kinda like a journal, but recorded. With voices! And also really terrible stories! Also my therapist agreed with her, so I have to.

Still, uh, I have to stay on this, like, regimen. Be careful not to slide back into bad habits. Look at me, all responsible and junk.

Anyway, sorry for taking up your time and the space on this thing with my rambles. Bea’s watching me do it to make sure, so I kinda had to get something in. Jeez, I didn’t even realize how far into this I was.

 

…

 

Yup.

 

We now return to your normally scheduled teen slash young adult angst! Sorta. I mean, it really happened, so that’s kinda messed up if you’re enjoying it?

Aw who cares. I’ll probably forget about this thing in a week. Or whenever a certain somebody stops _looking over my shoulder!_

 

Yeah, I saw you, Miss Smoking-Lounge!

 

Hey, so, since this is all recorded, does that mean I can just say embarrassing stuff about _you_ for the record? Like that one time we were driving to Bright Harbor and we stopped over at this shitty hotel and you—

_Hey!!!_

No! I’m—

 

***grunt***

 

This is—!

 

***scrapescrapeshuffleTHUD***

 

Bea, you’re _gonna_ _hit the reco—!_

 

*click*


	5. Track 3 (Revolving Doors)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Mae finds out things and is not pleased.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay, it's been a whirlwind of work for me lately so it took some time to actually write stuff down.

“I never really made a plan, you know? I always thought the future was this far-away thing I’d never really experience.”

 

Sunlight filtered through the wall-to-wall window that ran parallel to the reclining Mae, the lowering sun casting warm, sienna orange beams across her fur and the couch.

 

She was back, back again in this fancy room where the sun was always golden and the seats always comfy. She could live here. Therapy and a picturesque place in which to stay and forget the world. A voice in the back of her head begrudgingly agreed.

 

Also Max was there, too.

 

“I can understand that. From what you’ve told me, acting on impulse has carried you throughout most of your life, for better or for worse, and preparing for a future you can’t envision would make planning things out rather hard.” The creaky old gator scribbled something on his pad before returning his bespectacled gaze to Mae. “So what made this new idea of a plan different?”

“Well, I think it started after that incident. You know? Made me really think about what I was gonna do down the road. Adult things, like paying taxes or, uh, I dunno… working?” She fidgeted a little, her expression a little downtrodden.

“Ah yes. The ‘incident’. You know, at some juncture we will have to discuss that. It seems as though a lot of this burden you carry stems from that currently vague description you’ve given me.”

 

Mae felt her stomach curl up on itself and her vision go wobbly for a moment at the memories of her and her friends, enclosed within those stone tunnels, the cold and damp pulling at her fur as they’d trudged towards Angus’ hypothetical exit. She’d wanted it to be real, and thank god it had been, but the very real possibility that they might’ve met the same fate as all of those cultists still haunted her when any mention of that night came up.

 

“…yeah. Yeah, I know, I’m— it’s complicated.”

 

After all, how did you tell anybody, even a therapist, about the night when you’d dreamt of your whole town being wiped from the face of the earth? That, while injured and practically incoherent, you’d dragged your closest friends into what truly could’ve been a cold and silent grave, nestled alongside a dying otherworldly demon who’d been fed with people, _real people_ , Casey and god knew how many others?

 

“So you’ve said before. We can shelve that topic for the time being, Mae, though we’ll discuss it soon enough. Now, about this plan of yours?”

 

Grateful for the out that the gator had given her, the feline patient nodded slowly. “Right. So, uh, I hadn’t made any plans in forever. Like, big plans, life and being a real adult, not like ‘what am I gonna do today or tomorrow’ plans.”

 

“Well I thought it’d be a good idea to ask pretty much the only other really responsible person I know aside from my mom and dad…”

* * *

 

Angus almost dropped the phone when it’d suddenly blared out the stock ringtone at maximum volume, both a lack of sleep and the fact that someone was calling him who wasn’t Gregg shocking him from the late-night stupor. He looked at the clock above the television, squinting in the darkened apartment. It was almost half past eleven; his boss was asleep, and his boyfriend was showering in the other room. The number certainly didn’t look familiar either.

 

He swore, if it was another one of those telemarketers, he was going to have to start learning how to trace phone numbers back from his computer.

Flipping the top up to answer, the bear slowly moved the phone up to his ear. “Hello? Who is this?”

 

“Angus! Hey big guy!”

 

Well, if there was anyone he would’ve expected (if he had, which he definitely had not) to call at almost midnight on a weekday, it was certainly Mae Borowski. The living embodiment of ‘deal with it later’ when it came to almost anything.

 

“Oh! Hey. How’s it going, Mae? I didn’t know you got a cellphone. Did they actually build that tower near town after all this time?” Angus all of a sudden realized how tired he sounded, and apparently the cat on the opposite end of the line did too.

“Nah, I’m at the Ham Panther. They still have a real working payphone, believe it or not. Um, so, I didn’t like wake you up or anything, right? I forgot that you probably have work in the morning.”

The brown-furred bear couldn’t help but let a small smile cross his lips. For as aggravating and accidentally destructive as Mae was, the way she responded with genuine apology in her voice made it hard for Angus to really hold a grudge.

“It’s fine, I was still up. Gregg’s in the shower, and it’s hard to sleep with the noise, so I’m just waiting for him.” There was a pause for breath, and a thought occurred to him.

 

“Hey, you’re okay, right? I appreciate the call, but it’s pretty late. You good?”

 

“No! I mean, yeah! I’m fine, it’s not my head stuff. I’ve been seeing someone about that.” Mae’d quickly sputtered in response, sounding perhaps a little downhearted. Angus realized how that must’ve come off, and he felt a little guilty. Sure, she’d been messed up in those days right after her return to Possum Springs, but it’d been _months_ since the whole mines thing. Surely he could cut her some slack. Plus, all that cultist stuff had been true, so who was he to judge her about that?

 

“Alright, well, I’m glad you’re getting real help. It is real help, right? Not Doctor Hank again?” When had Mae started therapy? The bear tried to recall the last time he or Gregg had even talked to their friend.

 

“Haha, no way I’m going back to him! Eff that guy! He probably messed me up more than I even know. I’m seeing this guy Max, he’s in this place way outside of town. You remember Emityville?”

 

Gears churned in Angus’ head. Since he and his adorably excitable boyfriend had moved out to Bright Harbor, their collective memory of Possum Springs had started to wane. It’d started with the names of people, like when Gregg had tried to tell the story of the time he’d been stuck atop one of the telephone poles during his first (and only) attempt to follow Mae up onto some rooftop. He’d been ground to a halt, and recalling Gregg’s momentary concern over forgetting the name made Angus think twice as hard.

 

“That’s somewhere past, um… Fort Lucenne, right?”

“No, dude! It’s the other way, going south on the freeway, passing by Trentsburg. Fort Lucenne is like, an hour the other way.”

 

Damn. Well, so much for that. Looks like another thing to chalk up to living anywhere else but Possum Springs; geography is no longer a thing anymore.

 

“Either way, it sounds like you’re really taking to getting therapy,” Angus replied. “I’m glad you’re doing better, and if Gregg weren’t hogging all the hot water, I’m sure he would be too.”

Mae snickered on the other end of the line. “Dude, you should totally go and flush the toilet so he’ll get out and talk to me! Revenge for the lack of water that isn’t ice-cold!”

The young woman’s devious snickering put the bear into a slightly better mood, the lingering tiredness fading as the familiarity of talking to the chaotic young lady replaced it. Hell, he even got caught up in the idea, chuckling quietly.

“I would, if it meant he wouldn’t do the same thing in return in the mornings. After all, what would _you_ do if he did that when you were in the shower?”

“Dang. You’re right,” the cat responded. “Looks like I’ve been undone by my own hubris.”

“I’m sure Gregg would agree.”

“Totally. Heck, he’d probably put some, like, hair dye or something into the shower head for full effect.”

“He definitely would.”

 

There was a comfortable moment of silence as both Angus and Mae shared the thought of a surprised Gregg tumbling out of the bathroom with a brilliant new shade of green fur.

 

The moment was interrupted by the automated voice of the operator elbowing into the call, asking for more change to continue the conversation. Faint cursing could be heard on the other end of the line, followed by the quiet ‘clink’ of coins being plunked into the payphone.

 

“Agh I’m getting distracted! It’s even costing me money this time! Eff the phone police!”

 

“Heh. So what did you call for then? Must be pretty important.” Angus glanced at the clock again. It was now ten to midnight. The sounds of the shower had stopped now but Gregg was still in the bathroom.

“Yeah, okay, so! I had this idea— well, it’s more of a plan. Or a plot. I wonder what makes those two different? Do you think it’s— agh! There I go again!”

Quite amused by his friend’s self-derailing, the bear cleared his throat to gently interrupt. “Maybe you want to call back earlier tomorrow night? I know that being tired makes explaining stuff a lot harder than it should be.”

 

Mae was quick to quash the idea. “Noooooo! I got this, I swear!” She cleared her own throat, hem-hemming as if she were going to give a presentation. “Okay, so Bea isn’t doing well and I was thinking we could maybe do something to cheer her up! Getting the gang back together! Except instead of doing mysteries or chasing dad cults, we could hang out and, um, do normal stuff. Like we used to. I thi— I know it’ll help her. I just know it.”

 

At the mention of Bea, Angus’ ears perked up and his expression shifted to concern. He sat up properly, no longer slouched in place on the couch. “What? Is she okay? What happened?”

 

Naturally, Gregg chose that moment to come strolling in, looking quite comfy after his lengthy shower. His usual attire of his trademark coat and jeans were exchanged for pajamas, which in this case was a set of purple boxer shorts and a faded oversized shirt with ‘That’s a whoppah!’ printed on the front. Angus faintly recalled Mae giving it to him after some kind of bet.

“Hey cap’n! Who’s bugging you this late?” The wiry fox grinned, flopping back onto the couch alongside his boyfriend. Judging by his typical carefree expression, Angus knew that he hadn’t heard the tail end of the conversation.

 

Quickly putting a hand over the phone, he explained in brief. “It’s Mae. Something’s up with Bea. She said that she’s not doing well.”

 

That was enough for Gregg’s mood to do a complete flip-flop, his comfy smile replaced with deep concern. It was one thing that Angus loved so much about his boyfriend; for as silly and reckless as he could be, when it came down to it there wasn’t anything that Gregg cared more about than his friends… except for Angus himself, of course.

“What happened?!?” He demanded, pulling himself upright and staring intently at the bear next to him. “Is she hurt? What’s going on???”

“In a bit, bug. I was just going to ask.” Returning the phone to his ear, Angus found himself in the middle of one of Mae’s rambling speeches as she tried to tell him everything all at once and unsuccessfully so.

 

“—so then I had to carry her upstairs and my mom was all over the place and my dad just was quiet while he helped me and it freaked me out so bad that I almost dropped all my meds on the bathroom floor when I tried to keep it together…!”

 

“Woah woah, Mae, slow down. I got about half of what you just said. Gregg’s here too now, hold on.” He pushed the button to set her on speaker and put the flip phone down on the table in front of the couch. “Okay, you’re on speaker. Now, tell us what happened.”

 

“Is Bea ok??? Dude, what’s going on!? This isn’t cool to just drop this on us, man!”

 

Angus glared at Gregg, and the ginger fox looked sufficiently cowed enough that he didn’t press on with all his questions.

 

“Oh! Um, h-hey Gregg. I’m really sorry, I’ve just— it’s been a weird couple of days, and… well, it was kinda hard to get in touch? Bea’s the only one who knows your number and I don’t have a phone and I really didn’t want to call from my house, cause my parents are already pretty worried about this whole thing. Sorry.” Mae sounded properly distraught now, and Angus realized that she must’ve been holding a lot back when she’d first told him about her plan.

 

“It’s okay, dude, I’m just actually worried! Bea’s, like, the coolest ever! It’s hard thinking about her not being all wise and calm. She’s like everybody’s rock.”

 

Angus nodded in agreement. “Bea does have her head on straighter than most of us. So, Mae, what happened?”

 

There was silence on the other end. Through the crappy handset, the two on the couch could hear the faint call of the trains that remembered the tracks that clung to existence near their old home town.

 

“…Mae?” Gregg hesitantly prodded.

 

“Sorry! Sorry. Got lost in my thoughts for a bit. What was the question?”

 

Angus looked to his boyfriend, and found that Gregg was already staring at him with the ever-rare expression of clear concern on his face. Something was incredibly obviously wrong back home, and something told the stalwart bear that remaining in Bright Springs wasn’t going to be an option for too long. Not that they’d move back, no; the final say in this matter was going to be whatever Beatrice decided to do. He cared deeply for both of his friends stuck back in that suffocating town, but he’d worked too long and far too hard to even consider returning.

 

“What happened to Bea? Is she alright, in the physical sense?”

 

“Oh, yeah, no, that’s not— I mean, I wouldn’t call you about that,” came the shaky response. “It’s, um. About her dad.”

 

Angus hadn’t ever met Bea’s father, and judging by Gregg’s cocked eyebrow and frown, neither had he. She’d mentioned him once or twice in passing whenever they were planning for band practice, but never spoke of him beyond that.

 

“I don’t know him all that well. Gregg didn’t either.”

 

“Well it’s a bit late to try, cause he’s… um. Not around. Anymore. I couldn’t get most of what Bea was saying, but— you know how, after that one night, a lot of people went missing and we were the only ones who knew what happened?”

 

The two young men froze in place, a scarf of pure dread wrapping itself around their shoulders. In that split second, they knew what was going to come next even as the haunting words spilled from Angus’ phone.

 

“Her dad didn’t come back.” Mae’s voice sounded dangerously on the verge of crying. “She— after you guys moved away, I g-guess she didn’t want anyone to worry, so she n-never said anything. Her dad never left the apartment, so I th-think nobody bothered to ask.”

 

Gregg was visibly shaken, fingers dug in hard against his bare legs, eyes fixated on the thin carpeting of the apartment. Angus put a hand on his boyfriend’s shoulder, though he wasn’t faring much better. Oblivious to how hard the two were taking it, their friend continued.

 

“This whole time she— I went in, to ask her for a job and we started talking about how the Pickaxe is d-doing bad cause there isn’t enough business, a-and she just… cried. I had— I asked— there was this huge thing, she told me her dad was gone and the shop was gonna close down and, and, a-and…”

 

“Mae, dude, we’re gonna come back.”

 

Angus was snapped from his shocked stupor, nearly breaking his neck with how quickly he’d swiveled it to stare at his boyfriend.

The ginger fox now looked fiercely determined, hands balled into fists that were pressed hard into the couch cushions. “We’re gonna come home and figure this thing out, okay? I’m not gonna let that stupid town ruin anything else. Especially not Bea.”

Even through the phone line, it was clear that Mae hadn’t expected an answer so quickly, and especially not from Gregg. The hard edge of focus in his voice was so unlike him that, for the briefest of moments, both she and Angus had seen adulthood shining through the fox’s typical boyish demeanor.

 

They’d all had to grow up, some time.

 

“It’s kinda sudden, bug. I love Bea, I really do, but we have work, we have bills we need to pay…”

The shorter fox turned his attention to the still-reeling bear, a righteous fury in his eyes. “Eff work!!! This is Bea! Beatrice! She drove us around, like, a billion times when she didn’t have to! She was our friend when Mae was gone and even when she came back! We’ve done all sorts of crazy-ass stuff with her! We got revenge for Casey with her, buried all those cultist bastards in the mines! I don’t care about work or anything if it means that we’d be letting her down!!! She needs us, cap’n!!!” His mania was evident, and Angus knew that when his boyfriend got into spells like this there was precious little he could do to dissuade him from his goal.

 

Swallowing the hundreds of logical problems with up and leaving work with practically no notice, Angus really thought about it. Gregg was right; how often had Bea gone out of her way to offer advice, curt and blunt as it was? She’d been there during Gregg’s self-reported ‘low low days’, shared in the misery of growing up in a dead-end town, sympathized when she’d heard their stories in full. To anyone else, it was crazy to think of the alligator as much beyond her smooth, sarcastic, and even sometimes cold self-projection.

 

Her friends knew better.

 

“Alright. Look. We need to at least give notice that we’re gonna take sick time, bug. I’m not saying we won’t help out, but we still do need jobs when we get back. It’ll probably be at least a day or two before we can catch the bus back to town.”

Gregg was slightly mollified by Angus’ response, his fists less clenched and his shoulders less squared up. A weak smile graced his lips, and he gently leaned over so he could rest his head against the bear’s shoulder.

“…thanks, cap’n.”

The moment was again interrupted by the operator asking for more coins, snapping the two back to the present. Mae obliged the robotic voice once more.

“It— thanks, you guys,” she sniffled, choked laughter breaking up her words. “This means a lot. S-sorry that it’s sudden.”

“Hey, dude, you don’t have to apologize for this. We can’t be legends if we’re not all legends together,” the ginger fox replied. “It just ain’t fair that way.”

 

Mae let out a half-sob, half-laugh, though her tone made it evident she was more on the verge of happy tears than sad ones. “Haha. Y-yeah. I guess it works out like that, huh? Anyway, it’s really late. I should get home and help out with Bea. Thanks again, dudes.” There was a click, and then the line was closed.

 

The apartment stayed quiet for a few minutes, Gregg and Angus thinking about everything. It was a lot to process when, just half an hour ago, the world had seemed sane and stable for a record time in both of their lives. The closure that moving away had provided only made that decision to go back home all that more difficult. But this… they couldn’t leave Mae alone to deal with this, and Bea deserved some reparation for all those years of putting up with them.

 

It was time to go home, for better or worse.

* * *

 

 

The golden rays of sunlight had petered off into more of a faint glow, the sun having settled below the distant mountains some time ago. Mae had managed to somehow scoot low enough on the furniture that her legs hung off the edge, her dirty boots dangling a few inches from the carpeting.

 

“…and then I when I got home my parents chewed me out pretty bad. Turns out that some people just don’t appreciate all the work their kids go through to try and help,” she concluded, a wry smile below twitching whiskers.

 

Max had burned through a good few pages of his notepad by the time he finished writing, having let Mae run through the whole situation and story. The idea of interrupting had come to him briefly, but the young lady on the couch seemed to become a lot more stable as she let her words carry them both back to when those events had taken place.

 

“So, your friends,” he started, quickly flipping back to where he’d jotted down most of the important parts of his patient’s tale. “Angus and Gregg. They agreed to come visit, to accompany you in your attempts to help Beatrice.”

 

Mae nodded slowly, her mind still drifting half in thought. “Yup.”

 

The therapist hummed as he twirled his pen, briefly checking his watch. “I’d like to continue with this, Mae, the next time you come to see me. We might be close to really opening up on what I believe is one of the sources of your episodes. Before you go, though, I’d like to say something that I want you to think on until our next session.”

 

That caught the young cat’s attention, and she heaved herself upright on the edge of the couch. Up until that point, Max hadn’t ever asked her to do something outside of her sessions beyond just taking her medication. “What’s up?”

 

Sliding his ubiquitous notepad into its notepad-shaped gap in the cushions, the elderly gator folded his hands in his lap, though his gaze never wavered from Mae. “We’ve been meeting for about a couple of weeks now. I believe that it’s time for you to really think on what you want to get out of these sessions.”

He raised a hand, cutting off his patient right as she opened her mouth to say something. “I know, I know that you’ve told me that you want help with your ‘brain stuff’, as you put it. I meant in a longer-term situation.”

 

Mae closed her mouth.

 

“I believe that you have a very common behavioral condition that we call ‘revolving door’ syndrome. It’s nothing particularly serious, at least not until it repeats itself in a cycle that can cause serious aberrations in those who suffer from it. More commonly, you might see it in people who lose a lot of weight and then regain it, only to lose it all and then repeat; yo-yo dieters, they’re typically called.”

“In your case, however, it isn’t your weight that you have an issue with. I believe that, even in your best nature, that you have a revolving door in which you’ve placed your friends.”

 

The cat on the couch was dead silent, her eyes now avoiding Maxwell’s and pointedly looking at anything else as he kept speaking.

 

“From what you’ve described to me, the past events and even current ones, you rely on your friends and family in order to help cope with the dissociative episodes as well as your behavioral issues. Now, I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing; after all, what are friends and family for if not to be there in our time of need?”

“The root of the issue is that, despite your clear acknowledgement that you do have to let go and leave them to their own lives, when you encounter any situation in which you become highly stressed or suffer from some setback, there is no buffer between attempting to solve the problem yourself before you reach out to others for help. Again, that’s not a bad thing in itself. But, in this situation, you do have to think about how this looks to other people.”

 

“You explained to me how badly Angus and Gregg wanted to leave Possum Springs and make a new life for themselves away from their home town. The same goes for Beatrice, who wants to get out and go to college, achieve the dreams she had to shelve for the sake of her father and his business. They have long-term goals, even though the obstacles are high and it makes their future uncertain. Yet when it comes to your own obstacles, instead of approaching them yourself, it seems like you not only desire but _require_ your friends in order to function. It’s what some people might consider selfish, if they didn’t know your friends like you do.”

“Again, I’m not saying that you don’t need them or to never ask for their aid. You simply need to think about how something like asking them to commute nearly a day away from their home would do. When they’re not with you, they do have lives to lead, Mae. Perhaps that merits a little more consideration, and as an added benefit, you’ll learn some constructive independence. This situation you described, with Beatrice, it is quite important to all of you, I understand. Next time, just consider other options.”

 

Anything else that came after, Mae hardly heard. She went through the motions of shaking Maxwell’s hand, stepping out of the room, making another appointment with the goat at the front desk. The more she thought, the clearer it became that Max’s words had been difficult to process because she’d instantly rejected the notion that her own actions had again disrupted her life and her friends’ lives. Just like they had when she’d left for college. When she’d come back, mentally unsound and almost tearing them from work on a regular basis. When her head, her nightmares and paranoia, had led them down into the bowels of the earth and literally almost killed them.

 

Granted, that last part was a little more justified, but the notion remained as Mae stepped out into the lobby and her mother looked up from her latest novel with a soft smile.

 

She’d trapped them all in a revolving door along with her, and kept pushing and pushing it around even as they’d tried to step out.

 

The drive home was very quiet.


End file.
